What about her?
by emedealer
Summary: Sigerson Holmes has a talk with his son about a certain pathologist.


A/N: Little Sherlolly bit with Sherlock's dad. Discussing feelings and all that jazz.

* * *

"Those two," Sigerson gestured to the door he had just closed, the inhabitance being John and Mary. He had noticed a great deal of tension between them. "are they alright?"

"Well, you know they've had their ups and downs." Sherlock sighed.

Sherlock took to the chair in the living space, bringing up the newspaper with the blaring headline, checking his watch. Sigerson Holmes followed behind, assessing the Christmas tree to the work of an artist (the artist being his wife).

"Tell me about your doctor friend?"

His father had always been known to make these sort of half minded inquiries, and they were the kind that were supposed to have some underlying meaning which you were supposed to catch immediately.

If there had been a flake of innocence in the question, Sherlock wouldn't have caught it anyway. His eyes flicked upwards to his Father, who admittedly played the role magnificently. The man kept busy with the Christmas tree, hanging a set of red nutcracker ornaments without sparing a glance to his son, who had instinctively dropped the newspaper to his lap at the question.

"John Watson." Sherlock muttered.

"No, the young lady at the hospital."

"What about her?" He asked, taking to reading the article again, his mind spinning.

Siger paused, scratching his head.

"Remind me her name."

"Molly Hooper." The answer came quicker than he'd intended.

Sherlock earned grin from his father at that. "She's the one that fancied you, isn't she?"

"I don't remember you ever having met." Sherlock said, sounding more than matter-of-fact, edging on sarcasm. His eyes briefly skimmed over the words on the paper, hardly getting anything from it.

"Oh, never." Siger returned his attention to the tree. "Violet and I read her blog."

Sherlock had only ever seen the blog once, which ended in his brow furrowing at the pink webpage littered in kittens and uplifting… words. He had pulled it up on his laptop on a night alone in the flat. There had been many of those lately but he preferred not to dwell on it.

Her entries were short, uninteresting, but they gave insight on a precious few of her thoughts towards him, and he was ashamed to read it when he did.

_Oh, and Sherlock came in again tonight. And he was his usual arrogant self! And he was blatantly flirting with me and I know he's doing it and I should tell him to stop but I don't! And, of course, he was only doing it so I'd help him with something. As soon as he got what he wanted, he was off._

He had read the excerpt and shut the laptop, bringing his fingers together at his lips. He shouldn't have felt anything from it, as it had been years since that she had posted it, and it been years since she had posted anything at all.

"You think she fancied me because of her blog." Sherlock countered, smirking as he recalled her thoughts towards him, and how embarrassingly transparent he had been to her.

_You can see me._

He pushed the thought away.

"No-," Siger grunted as he stepped down from the footstool, turning with a similar look to his son. "I think she fancied you because you allowed her to help you. Didn't you?"

There was no answer for the moment, and his father was patient.

"Any feelings she might have had for me ended long before that." There was a certain finality to Sherlock's statement that surprised Siger, and himself. He wished that he didn't believe it so decidedly.

"That is quite unfortunate, but I'm afraid I have trouble believing that she didn't feel anything for you after all that she did."

"What difference does it make whether she felt anything?" His voice was quiet, frustrated. He wondered why his father mentioned her at all.

"I guess it doesn't make any difference." Siger sighed, lowering onto the chair across from him. "I just wondered…"

"No." Sherlock said. "It doesn't matter if I reciprocate any of it now. She's at least made that clear."

Siger nodded, knowing not to press _that_ subject. He took a different approach.

"But have you ever wanted to?"

"I have."

"Do you still?" It was only curiosity that prompted him to ask, but the question hovered in the room for almost a minute before any response came from his son.

"Yes." He spoke the word softly, as though he realized in that moment that it was true.


End file.
